Cold
by aradian nights
Summary: Daenerys understands why her dragons were needed to fight the Others, but it doesn't make her loss hurt any less.


_**C**old_

Daenerys had felt the sting of winter before she even reached the wall, but she had never fully realized its impact until this day. She stared into the sea of Others below her, stroking Drogon's neck gently. Westeros was her kingdom, she reminded herself, nearly forgetting that she was the queen of this land now. She could not allow her people to be subjected to this nightmare.

Even if it was so, she felt a nagging as the dragon fire sent the Others and wights screaming. She looked up as Jon Targaryen, her long lost nephew, reared up beside her on Viserion. His dark hair blew wildly around his long, Stark face. She was getting used to the sight of him, though she was still unsure of how to treat him. He was an ally, that was something he'd made apparent, but could she learn to see him as kin?

"They cannot get past the Wall, Daenerys," he shouted over the winds.

She nodded, turning to look at the icy fortress. It had inspired a bit of fear in her at first, the Wall of ice that looked as if it had been erected by a god. She then told herself that her dragons could bring it down if she wanted them to, and she was no longer afraid. Daenerys looked back at Jon.

"Is your cousin on the other side?" Bran Stark had appeared only days before, a crippled boy of about twelve, but wiser than she'd been at fifteen. In fact, the boy and his allies all seemed to be older than they appeared, intelligent souls behind their youthful skin. Excluding the half-wit, that was. Daenerys remembered that Bran was a warg, a soul changing being. His magic was more powerful than hers, and she had to admit it after seeing him warg into Rhaegal.

"Brother," Jon corrected. "He's there, and he's waiting for the signal. Rhaegal doesn't fight him, so he can skinchange into him easily enough. I'm sure if we made a saddle for him, Bran could get to riding his dragon in a day."

"If we had a day," Daenerys said softly. She urged Drogon away from Jon, dwelling on the words of Rhaegar in the House of the Undying. _The dragon has three heads, _she thought. _The song of ice and fire_. It seemed to fit, a dragonrider born of fire, a dragonrider born of ice, and a dragonrider born in the midst of the two elements. The three-headed dragon was their only hope of slaying the Others.

She let Drogon guide her, her thoughts melting into the battle. She saw Wildlings charging to meet the Others and wights, and she let them do that, keeping to burning further back in the army. There were so many of them, her heart was beginning to pound hard in her chest. What if her dragons weren't enough? Humans bowed to them, but these were Others, and they were just as otherworldly as her 'children'. Dany patted Drogon's side as the fire spread. Once she gave the signal…

Drogon shrieked in pain as ice caught his left side, crawling up his neck. Daenerys screamed with him as they spiraled in midair, and she felt her fingers slip from the grooves of Drogon's scales. She had only a moment to gather her thoughts as she plummeted through the air, her body sinking like a stone. Her hair whipped against her face, and all of her inner organs seemed to have left her the moment she fell from her dragon.

"Drogon!" she screeched against the wind, but he was too far away. She glimpsed him devouring a few crispy wights. Her eyes widened as she neared the ground, and she realized she could not shut them.

When she was caught by the arm, it was extremely painful. Dany bit her tongue to keep from screaming, and focused more on breathing. She looked up at Jon, who was holding her wrist as tightly as he could. She saw that he had gloves on, and her heart sunk. He would drop her. It was a fact, and she probably only had a few moments.

"I'm putting you on the Wall!" he cried as she clawed her way into getting a grasp on Viserion's cream colored scales. "When I do, I need you to blow the horn!"

"Drogon," she gasped, climbing a little. The warmth of Viserion gave her strength, and set her heart back into a regular pattern.

"He's handling himself nicely, considering he's being swarmed by Others." Jon looked down at her and shook his head. "He's not going to make it long, Dany. We have to signal Bran now."

Her throat closed at the mention of Drogon dying. He was… he was the one that meant the most to her, the one who she had named after her sun-and-stars. She dug her nails into Viserion's pale scales, and she set her mind on something else.

"You called me Dany," she observed, not knowing what else to say. She wondered if he'd heard her, through the screams of battle, wind, and death. She felt his fingers tighten around her wrist.

"What?" He looked down at her, his brow creased beneath his tumble of dark hair.

"You said Dany." She felt tears in her eyes, but she did not let them fall. They would only freeze on her cheeks anyway. "The past moon you have called me Queen Daenerys, or just simply Daenerys. You have never called me Dany before."

"I guess I've grown fond of you." Jon Targaryen managed one last laugh, a short and cold thing that seemed to give Daenerys the last push she needed as he dropped her on the icy topside of the Wall. She landed in a crouch, looking up as her newfound friend rode back into battle, and she sighed. Drogon was not gone yet. He was still fighting, and so she would stand as well.

"The Others are at the gate!" a man screamed, his fingers on one of the slates that covered the piping.

Dany stood and pushed through the Free Folk who were waiting for the signal. She paused at the scruffy looking Wilding holding the horn, and she squinted at the tiny girl. She was just a child, no older than Dany had been when she'd been wed to Drogo. She snatched the horn and spun around, bringing it to her lips.

Silently she prayed to any god who would hear her that this worked, and she blew the horn three times. The signal blared through the night, and it drowned the sounds of the war beneath them. Daenerys took a deep breath afterwards, stepping back to watch the Free Folk lining the Wall pull back the slates. She moved closer to the edge to observe the bright green liquid as it poured over the side through the rustic pipes burrowed into the face of the Wall.

Screams erupted around her as the ice beneath them began to rumble. Dany's stomach lurched as it had when she'd fallen from Drogon, and blew the horn thrice again. She could hear the structure cracking, and she felt it quake under her feet. She looked up at the familiar flap of dragon wings, and Rhaegal swooped overhead, his wings beating off the snow and wind. Daenerys gripped the horn tightly, her mind wrestling with the idea of falling with the Wall, without the warmth of her dragons to comfort her.

It was hard to keep herself from screaming when the ice beneath them began to split, and she looked around for something to hold onto, but there were only people, and ice. The darkness lit up around her as the Wildfire ignited, drowning the Others in the green flames. The world appeared to have gained a green sun, the horizon gleaming with the fire. Atop of Rhaegal was Tyrion Lannister, who was not as comfortable with riding as Daenerys, or even Jon who had admitted that he was growing attached to Viserion. It had been Tyrion's who had suggested the use of Wildfire, and it was Tyrion who was dropping large jars of it across the expanse of the army.

Daenerys thought about jumping into the fires below, but she was sure the fall would kill her. Would that even matter? What were her chances of surviving the fall of the Wall? She closed her eyes as the quaking beneath her finally forced her onto her stomach. She struggled to crawl toward the edge, her heart pounding as she pressed her cheek against the icy mass. She pushed herself onto her knees and she looked down into the fire. There were only a few moments to digest the image of the Wall _burning_, before she fell onto her back, and the Wall collapsed into itself.

Fire could not kill a dragon. Ice, of course, was a different story.

* * *

_Letter C in my 'Dani's Death Alphabet' challenge. Not much to say about this one, it's pretty straight forward. Daenerys dies, the end._


End file.
